The Canadian Premier League announced Friday that it will postpone the start of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision follows Canada Soccer’s March 13 announcement to suspend all sanctioned activities. The CPL season was scheduled to start on April 11 with Hamilton, Ontario’s Forge FC playing host to Calgary’s Cavalry FC.
“We will continue to work with all of those authorities in order to make a decision on when to begin our 2020 season when it is declared safe by the relevant health and government agencies, including our governing body Canada Soccer,” CPL commissioner David Clanachan said in a statement.
The CPL has made the decision to postpone the start of the 2020 season#CanPL pic.twitter.com/7kFOWbJALH
— Canadian Premier League (@CPLsoccer) March 20, 2020
The CPL has not yet set a target for the league’s new start date. Instead, the league will continue to examine the situation in order to plan out the CPL’s second season.
“Collectively with our Clubs and Owners we unanimously agree that our number one priority is to protect the well-being of our fans, players, officials, employees and the general public,” Clanachan said. “We will continue to monitor closely all input from our government agencies and medical experts and maintain our consistent dialogue both internally and externally. As more information becomes available, we will provide public updates.”